//------------------------------//
// A Chilled Panic 
// Story: Daughter of Chaos 
// by Pennington Inkwell 
//------------------------------//

	Whipstitch looked anxiously around the train station, trying to spot her old friend in the crowd. It didn't take long for the first pink unicorn to spot another waving to her in the crowd. Her face lighting up with a cheerful grin, Whipstitch ran forward, using her magic to keep her bags in tow.

"Lily!" The two mares laughed together as they fell into a loving hug. "I'm so glad you could make it! I always hate making this trip alone!"

"Whipstitch!" As the two released one another, Lily gave her a wide smile. "I'm happy to come with you! I've been thinking about taking a day or two off, and this is as good an excuse for myself as any!"

Whipstitch rolled her eyes. "Lily, you shouldn't need an excuse to rest! Seriously, I think that what you need is just to skip town for a week or two! Take a vacation, go on a binge!"

Lily seemed to find this humorous, chuckling to herself as he glanced up at the large clock in the center of the train station. "Come on, the train for Fairytrail leaves in ten minutes. If we want to catch it, we'd better get moving!"

Whipstitch nodded, lifting her array of bags into the air. She had almost a dozen and was carrying them all via magic. Noticing the array of objects floating in the air around her, Lily gave Whipstitch a skeptical look.

"I'll explain later..."








Pennington and Moonstone sat quietly in the chariot, floating high above the countryside as they were pulled back towards Equestria.

"I still don't like that we had to leave the rest of the expedition behind..." Pennington muttered, anxiously looking over the side. After a few moments, he quickly retreated back to the center, shaking his head and taking a deep breath.

Moonstone grinned to herself as she jumped up onto the front piece of the chariot, playfully leaning back and forth. "Problem with heights, Penn?"

"Well, only almost as much as paralysis..." He muttered. "Though it's not the heights so much as falling... and the sudden stop at the end..." He looked past Moonstone at the ponies pulling their transport, a troupe of four bat ponies.

"Well, Luna said that she need us back as soon as possible!" Moonstone flew a quick lap around the chariot before coming to a landing next to Pennington. "And everypony in the expedition will get home just fine!" She cast an uneasy glance at the three sacks that Pennington had put the relics into. "If anything, we're doing them a favor by taking these away..."

Pennington quietly moved towards the back of the chariot, taking another glimpse over the side. "Well, you'd think so, wouldn't you? But I can't tell if these things are going to save Canterlot or destroy it!"

"Well, they didn't destroy you..." Moonstone grinned quietly as the typically-fearless adventurer turned pale and moved back to the safety of the chariot's center. "Maybe they're benign?"

"Neither did the mask of Cha'qued. Instead, it was going to use me to kill dozens of ponies..." He shook his head. "But that vision was just completely confusing... We're taking a big risk by taking them someplace as densely populated as Canterlot."

"Then why don't you drop them off in the Vault in Ponyville?" Moonstone rolled her eyes as he moved to the edge a third time. "And why do you keep doing that if you're afraid of heights?"

"Well, if Canterlot is in danger and these can save it, then we couldn't afford to leave them in Ponyville. If they're going to unleash some kind of destructive force, then Luna, Celestia, and Eclipse are going to be the ones best-suited to stop them..." He continued looking over the side, obviously terrified by the drop.

"As for looking over the side, consider it shock therapy... I'm trying to get over this fear so I can finally do a book signing in Cloudsdale." He gave a light chuckle as he continued staring over the edge. "You know, once you've imagined all the different, horrible ways you could land, you start to stop being so scared..."

"Yeah, like if you broke your neck when you landed and wound up not being able to go find help because you couldn't move!" The devious words had left Moonstone's mouth before she could resist the urge to tease him by combining his two worst fears.

Almost immediately, Pennington skidded backwards from the edge. After several seconds of deep breathing, he glared at Moonstone, who was rolling on the floor with laughter.

"Ah-HA-HA-HA-HA!"

"Moon Moon, I swear..."

"The look on your face!"

"Moonstone, I oughta-"

"I mean, seriously!"

"MOONSTONE!"

"S-sorry, Penn... I couldn't resist!" She finally stood up again, wiping a tear from her eye.

"Yeah, well at this rate, I'm not going to be able to resist cramming my next report to Luna down your throat with my own hoof..." He muttered. "And it'll reflect very poorly on how we've been working together..."

"Aw, come on, Penn! Lighten up!" Moonstone laughed. "You know I was only joking!"

"Mister Inkwell!" One of the guardsponies pulling them called out, grabbing his attention before he could retort to her.

"Yes?"

"We crossed Equestria's borders some time ago, but there's a storm forming up ahead!" As Pennington moved to the front of the carriage to look forward, the guard was proven correct: a large black cloud was forming ahead of them.

"Penn, I don't see any pegasi..." Moonstone squinted in concentration. "Are they just moving on their own?"

"If those are rogue clouds, I've never seen them get that far out of hoof! The weather patrol would have known about it!" Another one of the guards piped up.

"They aren't like any clouds I've seen..." Pennington muttered. "Look at them, they can't seem to hold themselves together! It's more like fog or mist!"

At this point, the black clouds seemed to have joined into a single, huge entity. There was movement within, like writhing tendrils of fog.

"Gentlemen... give this thing a very wide berth." Pennington made a wide, sweeping motion with his hoof. "Let's just leave the storms to the weather ponies, shall we?"

Moonstone looked up at him in confusion. Normally, when placed in a position to make a decision, Pennington would be one of the first to jump into danger in order to investigate something strange.

"Something about that cloud gives me the creeps, Moonstone..." He whispered at the chariot turned away. "It's like I can feel it staring at me, but... it's something more. Something deep. Instinctive, even... It's evil."

Moonstone looked between the pony and the cloud, trying to understand. It was unsettling, to be sure, but didn't seem overly intimidating, as if it could simply be easily blown away in the wind. Deep within the depths of the darkness, however, Moonstone was starting to see some kind of light. As she continued to watch, a light-blue glow began to build in the center of the cloud, clearly silhouetting the wisps and tendrils of black smoke around it.

"Penn... are you seeing-"

"Sir?" One of the guards asked, quickly becoming anxious. "That appears to be some kind of spell!"

"Well, what are you waiting for? Take evasive action!" Pennington shouted, taking a firm hold on the front edge of the chariot. "There's no way you're going to throw me off!"

Nodding together, the four guards began flying in synchronized movements, speeding away from the cloud at a speed almost double what they had been traveling at before. Staring back, Moonstone watched as a bolt of blue light leaped out, flying towards them.

"Look out!" She screamed, pointing at the oncoming attack. The guards reacted without even needing to look, taking a sudden downwards turn.

"AaaaaaaaaAHHHHHHHHH!" Moonstone watched as Pennington's grip tightened and he clung to the chariot. The blast flew directly over their heads, sailing off towards the horizon. As the light passed by them, all present shivered and shuddered as a wave of sub-zero air collided with them.

When the chariot finally stopped falling through the air and leveled out again, Moonstone took a moment to look at Pennington again. He seemed to be locked in place, eyes open wide.

"Penn? Buddy? Are you okay?"

"This is why I don't like roller coasters..." He whispered. "The drops..."

Moonstone would have laughed, but the cloud seemed to be preparing another shot at them. Jumping up, she slapped her claw across his face, drawing his attention.

"Pennington Inkwell! Keep it together! We're not out of the woods, yet!"

After a moment, Pennington finally broke out of his trance, looking down at her. "Right... Right!" Still refusing to let go of his grip, Pennington craned his neck as far around as he could.

"We've got another one!" He shouted. "Six o'clock, coming in at an angle!"

The guards seemed to understand with ease, arcing upwards and to the left as the spell struck the forest beneath them. All of them looked down in horror at the land beneath them was transformed. A huge mass of ice grew up from the ground as trees and foliage were flash-frozen into place, then locked in a miniature glacier. Moonstone could see Pennington gritting his teeth as they rose higher and higher into the air, trying to escape. At this point, the mass of energy seemed to be increasing its rate of fire, with another burst coming every few seconds, and the guards had taken a new path in a spiral formation, moving out and away from the cloud while keeping it in sight. The system seemed to be working, and a pattern of observing, dodging, and settling again seemed to be manifesting itself. Even Pennington seemed to be calming down as the sudden dips up and down began to become more predictable. After several minutes, the onslaught finally drew to a close, and the chariot once again grew calm and slowed its pace.

"I think that it's given up..." Pennington let out a long sigh, releasing his death grip on the metal of the chariot's body. "Gentlecolts, well done! My life is in your debt!"

"Just our job, sir..." One of the guards grinned, turning back to look at Pennington. "But thank you-"

The next moments seemed to happen in slow motion. Moonstone saw the flash of the final attack reflected in the guard's eyes, even before he reacted. As the shock spread across his face, the single pony stopped flying in place. With only one pony stopping in his tracks, the vehicle spun in place, throwing Pennington against the side and bringing all of them face-to-face with the horrifying attack.

What seemed to be a wall of the energy was bearing down on them with dizzying speed. It had been cast in a crescent shape, too tall and too wide to dodge, and the hopelessness of the situation quickly became apparent. Even as Pennington was beginning to rise to his hooves again, Moonstone jumped up, grabbing at his ear and pulling him back down again. Hiding behind the front part of the chariot, the two were saved from immediate freezing, despite the bone-chilling cold that settled in an instant. Half-encased in ice, the chariot and its passengers began plummeting out of the sky, completely out of control. Pennington was screaming deafeningly in her ear as the fell downwards into the forest. With her last conscious thought, Moonstone contemplated the nightmarish scenario that she had jokingly presented to Pennington earlier.

Oh please, don't let me be right!











Moonstone was pleasantly surprised to awake from the darkness, though the throbbing in her head quickly dimmed the relief. Sitting up, Moonstone pulled her eyes open and raised a claw to her aching cranium.

"Good, you're up..." Pennington's voice came from behind her. "Are you alright?"

"Aside from feeling like I took a line drive to the face? I'll live." Moonstone struggled to her feet, turning around to face him. To her surprise, Pennington was dressed in a set of the armor that she had seen on the guards beforehand. He was doing his best to tie the three bags together with the artifacts inside.

"Can you walk?"

Taking a few short steps, Moonstone felt her strength returning, replying with a nod. For perhaps the first time, she noticed that there was no sign of either the battle or their transport. The two of them were simply alone together in the middle of the woods.

"Good, because our way of getting out of here froze and shattered on impact..." He took a deep sigh.  "You saved my life again when you pulled me down... Thank you, Moonstone."

Moonstone smiled, a warm satisfaction settling over her. "That's what I'm here for, Penn." Glancing at the dark-purple armor, she scratched at her head. "Did you send the guards to get help?"

"Like I said... Our way out of here froze and shattered. I managed to salvage a set of armor after they thawed out."

"You mean..."

"Yep. They're resting in pieces." Moonstone felt a chill run down her spine as she realized fully that the guards had died protecting them.

"Is- is it our fault?" She whispered.

"No, it isn't. Whoever sent that cloud-thing is the one responsible for their deaths..." Pennington refused to look her in the eye while he spoke, focusing an unnecessary amount of attention on the helmet.  With a grunt of effort, misty white energy drifted off of his horn, forming into a curved sword in the air in front of him. With another grunt, he ripped a thick branch off of a nearby tree and began hacking at the tapered end until it came to a sturdy, thick tip. Fixing it into the ground, he took the helmet and jammed it down on top of the branch. The sharp end stabbed through the metal, forming a small hole in the top. At first, Moonstone thought that he was forming some kind of monument to the fallen guards.

"If you thought that it were, would you really let me believe it anyway? Or would you try to spare my conscience?" 

The beat of silence between the two answered Moonstone's question.

"Can you send a letter to Luna?" He asked as he pulled the helmet off again and placed it on his own head. The hole that had been formed was more than large enough for his horn to fit through.

"O- of course! I mean, do you have your ink and a scroll?"

Pennington passed her a rolled-up piece of parchment from one of the bags. "My saddlebags are ruined, but I salvaged enough for one letter and wrote it while you were asleep. I'm telling Luna that she should put a quarantine for the weather pegasi on that area of the sky. Judging from the last view I had, I told her we're going to be making our way towards the nearest signs of civilization and will continue to Canterlot from there."

Moonstone nodded with a smile. "So, where are we headed, then?" Pennington wasn't always so grim when they were running head-first into danger, but when survival was on the line, she got to see a more serious side of him few ponies had the chance to. Taking the scroll from his hoof, she tossed it into the air, blowing up from below.

The scroll fell to the ground as nothing happened. There was no fire, and hardly even a puff of smoke.

Confused, Moonstone took a deep breath, taking the typical measures to turn the space in front of her into a temporary inferno. When she blew out, however, only the tiniest violet flame escaped into the air before quickly dying again. Narrowing her eyes, she tried again. And again. No fire emerged from her mouth. Suddenly, their isolation felt much more severe, and a thrill of fear raced through her heart.

"Penn, what's going on? Why can't I breathe fire?" She knew that panicking was the last thing they needed to do, but the crisis was quickly becoming more personal. "I've never not been able to breathe fire!"

"Don't worry, we'll figure a way out of this..." The pony gave her one of his typical carefree grins, trying to comfort her. As he did, however, Moonstone's eyes caught the small movement of his teeth chattering, like they would when a pony had spent too long in the snow. "Whatever that was, I think that it may have just messed with us a little more than it seemed at first."

"Are you... cold?"

Pennington shook his head. "It's just been getting cooler outside. You know how it is, it's later in the year, autumn's setting in, the evenings are getting colder!"

Moonstone shook her head. "Pennington, it's not cold outside..."

"Well, that explains why it feels like mid-winter..." He muttered, picking up the bags and placing them across his back. "It's been getting more and more brisk, and I wanted to blame it on the weather... But neither one of us got out of there unharmed..."

Walking up to her friend, Moonstone placed a gentle claw on his front leg, quickly drawing it away again. "You feel like you just walked out of a freezer! We need to get you warmed up!"

"I'm fine." He shook his head, walking past her. "It's nothing compared to those times I've gone exploring up north! We just have to keep moving, or else it's only going to get worse!"

Moonstone shook her head. "We need to start a fire or something!" I never thought I'd have to actually have to WORK to get a fire started...

"If this is some kind of curse, a simple little campfire isn't going to break it!" Pennington seemed to be losing his temper, snapping at her angrily. Moonstone stepped back. After a few seconds, he took a deep breath. When he spoke again, he still wasn't calm. "We need help, and I'm getting more and more uncomfortable by the second... I don't want to wind up frozen because we decided that we had to try something that didn't work."

"I... guess you're right..." Moonstone ran to catch up to him. "So, where's the nearest source of help? Maybe I could fly ahead and-"

"What, and risk falling to some kind of other unseen side effect when I'm not there to help you?" Pennington scoffed. "Great idea..."

Moonstone raised an eyebrow at his sudden change in attitude. He was definitely in a worse condition than he was letting on, and his attitude was definitely going to be the thing to suffer the most for now. The idea that he made it out of that crash without a scratch isn't likely... I wonder if the armor is covering up any injuries?

"Well, you said yourself that there's nothing that we could do except keep moving, right? I don't want to die out here because we didn't try something that would have worked!"

Rolling his eyes, Pennington let out a long sigh, obviously running low on patience. "Fine... Go. I'm too tired to argue..." He muttered under his breath. "If I've got my directions right, and I usually do, then help is that way." He pointed straight ahead of them. "If you fly in that direction for at least 30 miles, you should come across a city. Thankfully, this isn't Everfree, but there's still no telling what's out there..."

Moonstone nodded, floating up into the air and above the trees with a few flaps of her wings. As she tried supporting her own weight in the air, she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder. She made sure to turn away before she let herself cringe so that Pennington wouldn't see. I can still fly, and Penn's counting on me!

"Moonstone! There are two things you need to do!"

Gathering her composure again, Moonstone turned to face him. When she did, she saw Pennington looking up at her. He didn't seem angry anymore, he looked more sad, perhaps even afraid.

"One: take care of yourself! Make sure you don't kill yourself trying to save me twice in one day!" They both grinned for a moment, but Pennington quickly grew serious again. "And two... Come back soon, okay? ...I'm not quite sure if I'm used to being on my own anymore."

He's going to miss me... Moonstone smiled wider, giving him a thumbs-up. "Don't go saving all of Equestria while I'm gone, okay?"

"Are you kidding? Right now, I'm so frozen, the only thing I could save would be an popsicle stand!"

Moonstone cast a worried glance towards him, but he quickly waved it away.

"Just hurry up, will ya? The only thing that we're burning is daylight! It's a slippery slope once I start telling ice jokes!"

Moonstone rolled her eyes. Pennington was trying to lighten the mood so that she would feel better about leaving him alone in the forest. "Fine, I'm going, already! Tartarus will freeze over before your sense of humor does, won't it?" Before he could reply, she was already gone, soaring over the trees as quickly as she dared with her injury.

"He'll never let himself freeze if he can't have the last word..."